A melting Swiss glacier has revealed a human skeleton that could be the remains of a missing German billionaire who went out on a hike and never came back.

Karl-Erivan Haub, 58, disappeared under mysterious circumstances in April 2018 in Zermatt, Switzerland.

His body was never found but he was declared formally dead three years later.

But now record heatwaves across Europe have melted part of the Stockji glacier in the Valais canton, near the Swiss mountain resort town of Zermatt and revealed human remains.

It is currently unclear who the skeleton belongs to, but German media outlet Bild has speculated that it could be Haub’s.

Swiss media has also speculated that they could belong to the missing German billionaire.

But several other people have also gone missing in the area over the years.

One – a Japanese woman named as Junko Sato, 28 – vanished in 2000.

Another is Swiss-American hiker Matthew Nisly, 20, who vanished in 2015.

Swiss media reports that the Valais police’s list of missing people in the area is three pages long.

But German daily Bild said that people in the region have been speculating that the skeletal remains could belong to the missing German billionaire, Haub.

He was officially declared dead but his body was never recovered.

Haub was the managing director and part owner of Tengelmann Group, one of Germany’s largest retailers.

His net worth was estimated at USD 6.4 billion at the time he was declared dead.

The investigation by the Swiss authorities to identify the recovered remains is ongoing.